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Battlefield reconnaissance has revealed at least these facts about the Hammer Tank:

• Ready for Battle -- The Hammer is a true main battle tank. Hammer crews are well-protected from small arms and light cannon fire while they lay waste to enemy vehicles. Hammer Tanks offer a fine balance of power and speed for a low cost, now that the Soviets have streamlined their production.

• Pound for pound -- The Hammer's 85 mm cannon cannot effectively target smaller enemies such as infantry and is of course unable to target aircraft at all. This means that anti-armor infantry and aircraft pose a real threat to Hammer Tanks, which is why most commanders use them together with support units such as Sickles and Bullfrogs. The Sickle, in particular, naturally complements the Hammer Tank.

• Adaptable -- The Leech-Beam gives the Hammer a degree of flexibility not found in other main battle tanks. While it of course takes longer to dispatch enemy vehicles than the main cannon, deliberate use of the Leech-Beam can cause the Hammer to gain anti-infantry or anti-aircraft capabilities it normally lacks. Additionally, the ability to regenerate hull strength while in combat has allowed well-trained Soviet Hammer divisions to defeat much larger forces, simply by retreating behind a the main battle line to use the beam's significant range while unharmed vehicles draw fire instead. The practice of shuffling damaged tanks into and out of the line of fire has become known as the "Battle Barynya," with some divisions going so far as to compose lyrics for the dance, most of them unsuitable for print.

• Ready to Crush -- Although the Hammer's main gun is normally ill-suited against infantry, the tank is sufficiently fast and heavy enough to simply roll over smaller threats. As this is a rather gruesome mode of defense, rumors that many Hammer crews relish in this particular tactic are unlikely to be true.